Black Political Decision Making

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-55
Author(s):  
Ismail K. White ◽  
Chryl N. Laird
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Group Norms ◽  
Role Identities ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Constraint Model ◽  
Black Political Behavior ◽  
Political Decision Making

This chapter offers a detailed explanation of the racialized social constraint model of black political behavior. It argues that black support for the Democratic Party has over time become a normalized form of black political behavior for which blacks actively hold one another accountable. In developing this argument, the chapter first reviews the relevant literature on African American political behavior and discusses how many of the insights gained from this research point to the importance of group-based expectations in ensuring compliance with group norms of black political behavior. It then engages the microfoundations of black political behavior, building on insights from mainstream political behavior and social psychology to identify the precise mechanism by which black partisan homogeneity is likely maintained. The focus is on how various incentives for compliance with group norms and sanctions for defection from these norms result in the maintenance of black political unity. The chapter also discusses the unique way that these norms relate to black identity, building on insights from the psychological theory of role identities. All of this leads to a set of general expectations for what can be observed if this framework for understanding black political behavior holds.

A Discussion of Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird’s Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-210
Author(s):  
Michael Leo Owens
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Behavioral Norm ◽  
Black Political Behavior

Charge: As Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird note, collectively more than 80% of African Americans self-identify as Democrats according to surveys, and no Republican presidential candidate has won more than 13% of the Black vote since 1968. This is true despite the fact that at the individual level many African Americans are increasingly politically moderate and even conservative. Against this backdrop, what explains the enduring nature of African American support for the Democratic Party? In Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, White and Laird answer this question by developing the concept of “racialized social constraint,” a unifying behavioral norm meant to empower African Americans as a group and developed through a shared history of struggle against oppression and for freedom and equality. White and Laird consider the historical development of this norm, how it is enforced, and its efficacy both in creating party loyalty and as a path to Black political power in the United States. On the cusp of perhaps the most consequential presidential election in American history, one for which African American turnout was crucial, we asked a range of leading political scientists to assess the relative strengths, weaknesses, and ramifications of this argument.

Vote Overreporting While Black: Identifying the Mechanism Behind Black Survey Respondents’ Vote Overreporting

2021 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2110221
Author(s):  
Clinton Jenkins ◽  
Ismail White ◽  
Michael Hanmer ◽  
Antoine Banks
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Survey Research ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Social Pressure ◽  
Racial Group ◽  
Group Norms ◽  
Linked Fate ◽  
Interviewer Effects ◽  
Black Political Behavior

It is now a well-documented fact of survey research that Black survey respondents overreport turning out to vote at higher rates than many of their peers of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. We bring renewed attention to this phenomenon by investigating how the ways in which the race of the interviewer might influence a Back respondent’s propensity to overreport turning out to vote. In this paper, we test two competing mechanisms for African American overreporting and race of interviewer effects: (1) racial group linked fate, and (2) conformity with norms of Black political behavior. We find support that social pressure to conform to group norms of political behavior is behind Black respondent’s overreporting in the presence of a same-race interviewer. These results have significant implications for how we view, analyze, and consider results from such studies.

From Many to Few

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey D. Fields
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
Black Political Behavior ◽  
Black Voters

This chapter examines the historical relationship between African Americans and the Republican Party. In contrast to their current unexpected status, it used to be common for blacks to support the party. Abolition was at the center of the party's creation, and African Americans were a critical constituency. Only in the 1930s did the majority of African Americans start supporting Democratic candidates in presidential elections. While shifts in how each party handled economic issues precipitated black voters' exodus to the Democratic Party, it was the Republican Party's response to the civil rights movement and demands for racial equality that produced its antagonistic relationship with blacks. In tracing this history, it becomes clear that black political behavior develops in concert with shifts in the broader political context.

Antecedents and Consequences of Gossip in Work Groups

2019 ◽  
pp. 416-434
Author(s):  
Bianca Beersma ◽  
Gerben A. van Kleef ◽  
Maria T. M. Dijkstra
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Work Groups ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Group Norms ◽  
Group Effectiveness ◽  
Interpersonal Aggression ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Antecedents And Consequences

This chapter provides an overview of the antecedents and consequences of gossip in work groups. First, the chapter reviews the different motives for gossip in work groups (i.e., bonding, entertainment, emotional venting, information exchange, maintenance of group norms/social order, and interpersonal aggression) and links each motive to psychological theory. Second, the chapter reviews the different types of influence that gossip can have on various indicators of group effectiveness. Reflecting on the motives underlying gossip in work groups, as well as on its outcomes, it argues that future research should start integrating the diverse insights provided by earlier research on both gossip motives and outcomes, and it provides a number of suggestions for doing so.

The Politics of Contentment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Modern Politics

This chapter focuses on the politics of contentment. In the past, the contented and the self-approving were a small minority in any national entity, with the majority of the citizenry being relegated outside. In the United States, the favored are now numerous, greatly influential of voice and a majority of those who vote. This, and not the division of voters as between political parties, is what defines modern American political behavior and shapes modern politics. The chapter first considers the commitment of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to the policies of contentment before discussing the effects of money and media on the politics of contentment. It also examines American electoral politics, social exclusion, and international relations in the context of the politics of contentment. Finally, it tackles the question of whether, and to what extent, the politics of contentment in the United States extends to other industrial countries.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 197-208
Author(s):  
Ismail K. White ◽  
Chryl N. Laird
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Black Politics ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Black Liberation ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Black Institutions

This concluding chapter examines the broader implications of this research, both empirical and normative. It discusses the potential for this theoretical framework to further understanding of the political behavior of other social groupings in America. The chapter also considers the framework's applicability to understanding the political homogeneity of localized racial groupings. If the foundational mechanism of political power through unity is that identified by the framework—coracial social ties—then desegregation and the loss of black institutions are a fundamental challenge to the doing of black liberation politics. The chapter discusses what this might mean for the future of black politics. In so doing, it also engages arguments about the harms of coracial policing and weighs how to think about balancing those concerns against the reality that the political unity that has consistently enabled black political power relies on a process of social sanctioning. Finally, the chapter considers the questions future research might answer by engaging and applying this theoretical framework and charts a course for future progress.

Equivalency Framing in Political Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asmus Olsen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Real World ◽  
Standard Form ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Controlled Environment ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
The World ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Political Decision Making

Politics is increasingly reliant on numerical descriptions of the world. Numbers are relied upon for their ability to communicate some unambiguous facts of life. Equivalence frames are equivalent descriptions of the same quantity and they help us understand how different ways of presenting the objectively same piece of numerical information affect political behavior. Equivalence framing effects denote that these different presentation of the fundamentally same fact have very profound effects on preferences. However, most research in political behavior have relied on other forms of framing and largely regarded equivalence framing as a well-defined concept without much relevance to real-world politics. The standard form of equivalence framing changes the valence of a label which describes the same numerical fact. This form of negative and positive framing of the same metric will often elicit very different responses for the recipient of the information. A less studied type of equivalence framing in political behavior manipulates the same numerical fact but with a different metric or scale. These have often not been explicitly recognized as equivalence frames but are clearly an important example in a world of numbers. As for valence manipulation, changing the metric can also have profound effects. Moving forward studies of equivalence framing must both gain a better descriptive understanding of the actual use and abuse of equivalence frames in observational setting and at the same time aim to understand the causal properties of equivalence frames in the field—outside the controlled environment of the survey or lab where they most often are studied.

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